I don’t know about you, but this war with sin has been happening for centuries. Sin was exposed in this world by the law. The law brought exposure to what was right and wrong in the eyes of the Lord. The law could expose our sin, but couldn’t do anything about it. Every year there was sacrifices for sin by the killing of bulls, sheep and goats. The high priest would go into the Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement for the people. This was all leading up to one day there would be a Savior that would save all of mankind.

Exodus 30:¹⁰ And Aaron shall make atonement upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement; once a year he shall make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.

Isaiah 53:² For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of dry ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we would look at Him,
Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.
³ He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of great pain and familiar with sickness;
And like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised, and we had no regard for Him. ⁴ However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.
⁵ But He was pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.

When this Savior arrived, He changed everything that has been taught. Look at Matthews 5, 6 and 7. Jesus was teaching all the people who were listening that you say one thing, but I say another. He was teaching how to live from the Kingdom of God. Here is of couple examples of what I am talking about.

Matthew 5:⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ⁴⁸ Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Matthew 6:1 Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. ² “So when you give to the poor, DO NOT sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, so that they will be praised by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. ³ BUT WHEN YOU GIVE TO THE POOR, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴ so that your charitable giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Sin is no different. We are to forgive others as we are forgiven. Sadly, many people in the church today still believe they are sinners saved by grace even though Jesus paid the price for sin once for all. Jesus taught that those who sin are a slave to sin, but sons are free from sin.

John 8:³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. ³⁵ And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. ³⁶ Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

Paul explained this very thing that we are dead to sin.

Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? ² Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Romans 6:⁵ For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ⁷ For he who has died has been freed from sin.

That verse above is not referring to physical death, but it’s referring to baptism. The likeness of His death.

Romans 6:¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So if Jesus is telling us that sons are free from sin, and Paul is telling us to be dead to sin, why then is sinner saved by grace so prominent in the church? There are three verses that the devil uses against Christians in the same way that the devil used the scriptures against Jesus. Remember, we are not to unaware of his devices. All three verses suppress the Kingdom of God flowing through you. To keep you from understanding of what you really have inside you. If you ever find out what that really is and live from there, the devil is done. The first one refers to the verse before, “If you say you have no sin,” is not saying your always a sinner. It’s saying if you have no need for the blood. The devil does a good job twisting this to have it saying more than what it says.

1 John 1:⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from ALL SIN. ⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

The second one, if you only read one verse, you won’t get the understand like the one you just read. The second is after righteousness.

Romans 3:¹⁰ As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
¹¹ There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.

The last one is sandwiched in the middle of truth. If you don’t read what’s before and after, your mindset will be twisted. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans 3:²¹ But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, ²⁶ to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus

Now here is the sad part. Most people in the church will defend sin rather than the righteousness of God. To me this is very confusing. You are saved from sin, but you are still calling your a sinner saved by grace. They are confessing of being in the devils camp and God’s. Who’s kingdom are you building? Sinners are building the kingdom of darkness and the righteousness of God are building the Kingdom of Light. Which kingdom are you building?

1 John 3:⁴ Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. ⁵ And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. ⁶ Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. ⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. ⁸ He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.